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The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization.

— W. E. B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

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More quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois

Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

John Brown: A Biography (1909)

I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.

The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003)

Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

Niagara Movement Speech (1905)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: W. E. B. Du Bois (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.